When you place a Rubber Tree Plantation, it will start to clear out the farm area. The farm area currently is a hollow column with a dimension 13x10x13 (X-Y-Z) blocks and 2 blocks wide with the Rubber Tree Plantation itself at the center of the ground level. It completely ignores the 9x9 area in the middle. It will idle until it receives the right materials to start the farm. You will need to supply it with Humus and Saplings. Both materials can be either placed directly into its storage or be supplied by BuildCraft Pipes. After receiving Humus it will lay down the soil. When this is finished, it will start to plant saplings. The Rubber Tree Plantation will replace any missing sapling and any degraded soil. If it cannot replace degraded soil because of a lack of Humus, it will also stop planting saplings.

As a side operation, the Rubber Tree Harvester also picks up any Saplings and Sticky Resin, when an Automatic Treetap is present and working, that drop in its area. Harvested materials are auto ejected into connected Buildcraft Pipes or placed into adjacent chests. If using pipes, Saplings and Resin are only ejected into a pipe on top or bottom of the Rubber Tree Harvester and Rubber Wood out of the sides.